


avec l'ange

by bottleredhead



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crimes & Criminals, F/M, Interpol - Freeform, M/M, Misuse of paint brushes, Organized Crime, Violence, White Collar Crime, improper use of commonplace objects as murder weapons, semi-graphic descriptions of blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottleredhead/pseuds/bottleredhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is one of those individuals who would give his life and soul for Paris. His creed is dulce et decorum est, his law pro patria mori. If he were English, he’d say for Queen and Country, but as it is, he obeys no monarchical figure. The monarchy, in Enjolras’ opinion, is an archaic ideology that fell through many times throughout history. Kings and Queens and figureheads are gluttonous, he’d tell you, greedy for the people’s money to fill their coffers – and their coffins.</p><p>So perhaps it is slightly confusing that he works for Interpol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	avec l'ange

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! It is I, once again brining you chapter one of a story that wouldn't leave my head until I had to write it. I wrote this back in May but then shit happened (if you read any of my other fics, you'll know what I'm talking about). This work is largely inspired by Fast & Furious 6 as well as [Gnomon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/729438/chapters/1354908) by [luchia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luchia/pseuds/luchia). If you haven't already, you should definitely read Gnomon.
> 
> This chapter has been largely beta'd by [Marie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorineandcoffeestains).
> 
> The fic has already been planned out, and I'm hoping to post at least one chapter per week. Based on what I have in mind, it'll probably turn out to be a longfic so consider yourselves warned!
> 
> I'm also beta-less at the moment so if anyone cares to help out, please find me on [tumblr](http://enjolraspermitsit.tumblr.com).

Everyone is in love with Paris, and everyone thinks they can tame her. Paris, for her part, is in love with being loved. She adores being adored, graced with beauty and art and lovers with locks that can bring down bridges with their heady concoction of amorousness. The sprawling city is artwork personified, Lady Liberty herself, she who tramples on the fallen to lead the masses to their salvation. Paris is, was, and always will be the land of the lovers; but what lovers forget is that they are doomed to fail, and Paris is a cruel mistress. Everyone forgets that Paris is the one who pours the poison down your throat as you stare at her with reverence.

Many have died for their country – pro patria mori didn’t come from nowhere – but few love Patria as those who have been trampled by her; Stockholm Syndrome, Combeferre would remark dryly, thinks Enjolras. 

Enjolras is one of those individuals who would give his life and soul for Paris. His creed is _dulce et decorum est_ , his law _pro patria mori_. If he were English, he’d say for Queen and Country, but as it is, he obeys no monarchical figure. The monarchy, in Enjolras’ opinion, is an archaic ideology that fell through many times throughout history. Kings and Queens and figureheads are gluttonous, he’d tell you, greedy for the people’s money to fill their coffers – and their coffins. 

So perhaps it is slightly confusing that he works for Interpol.

Well, he doesn’t work for Interpol, per se. He consults for them (“Consultation isn’t the same as being their slave!” he’d insist. “I do not serve their law.”) and only on cases of international security. It’s what makes him so popular with his fellow Parisians – he does not let the gorgeous city get blown up. He could murder children in their sleep, but as long as he keeps the cobblestone streets of Paris safe, he might as well be Leloir’s angel wrestling with Jacob, blond and beautiful and wrathful and too glorious.

Sometimes people forget that Paris is in love with Enjolras, too.

* * *

 

“Enjolras,” Eponine greets when he answers his phone. A quick glance at the clock tells him that it’s four in the morning.

“Eponine,” he grumbles, rolling out of bed and padding into the kitchen to make some coffee. If Eponine’s call couldn’t wait until working hours – heck, even normal waking hours – it must be a matter of international security. “How may I help you?”

Her voice is tinny when she talks, as though she’s passing through a tunnel “You can’t.”

The static buzz over the phone adds to his confusion, and he waits patiently for her to continue. When no answer is forthcoming, he frowns at his phone, checking that the connection still holds. “Eponine?”

“I know someone who can help but I’ve got no way of reaching him – I was hoping you and your team of nerds might be able to do the honours.”

He disregards her use of the word ‘nerds’; the Amis are a highly skilled group of political-minded individuals and both he and Eponine know that shit would’ve hit the fan for Interpol many times without their help. “I take it you can’t give me all the details over the phone?”

Her sigh carries across the line as he pours coffee into the largest mug he has. “No, I can’t. Pull some Avengers Assemble shit and gather everyone at HQ by six. I’ll bring donuts.” With that, she disconnects, leaving the political activist standing confused in his large kitchen.

Enjolras downs his coffee in one go when it cools down a bit, relishing the slight sting of heat on his tongue that shocks his system into battle-mode. By the time he’s showered and made breakfast, it’s almost five in the morning. Good. That means Combeferre will be up.

“Listen, I need you to send out a red alert for a meeting in about an hour’s time,” Enjolras says in lieu of a good morning. “Eponine’s coming over, she needs us to find someone.”

Combeferre huffs over the phone and Enjolras can hear him ruffling through papers. “Did she say who it was we need to find?”

“No. But she did wake me up at four in the morning so I assume it’s important.”

“Ah,” says Combeferre delicately. “Got it.”

They hang up just as Enjolras’ phone chimes. The screen reads Group Message from Combeferre. He swipes the phone unlocked, reading the coded message. It doesn’t tell him anything he doesn’t know already, but soon enough his phone is buzzing as the team’s replies fly in. They all confirm their attendance, except for Courfeyrac, who reminds the leader that he’s still on a train from Dublin to Paris.

 **From Courfeyrac:** _and btw, mssn accom, info obtnd_

 **From Courfeyrac:** _u know, if u were worried or smth_

By six, Enjolras is pacing the length of the room as his team piles in, one after the other, each shooting him wary glances but not daring to interrupt for fear of attracting his wrath. If he's mildly scary on a normal day, he's downright frightening when he's got a case to work and five cups of black coffee running rampant through his system. They shudder to remember the Parkour case - two years ago last month, Enjolras had forgone sleep and food in favour of working feverishly to find and dismantle three bombs rumoured to have been planted in the largest metro station in each of Paris, London and Berlin. The tech part of the team had been vastly incapable of lending a helping hand in the investigation due to a virus that shut down their systems and filtered all the files on their hard drives. Of course, this normally would not have been a problem except for the hackers accessing even their most remote of servers and crippling them completely. It was horrid, and by the end of it, Enjolras was several pounds lighter and burdened with a new nightmare material, y'know, in case his cache was overused.

Eponine strides in five minutes past the hour mark, dropping off the boxes and coffee trays she's brought before tossing a USB to Joly. He catches it with a yelp, plugging it in and dimming the lights with a few clicks of his keyboard. A blank screen lowers to create a projection area at the front of the room. Everyone snaps to attention when Eponine stands next to it.

"You better grab a coffee, we're going to be here for quite some time," she says, turning to the slide now projected onto the screen with a manic gleam in her eyes. Enjolras recognises it from seeing it in the mirror, in his own reflection. It's a quality he admires about her: she, like himself, would not rest until her job is done. And in their line of work, the job is never done, so they substitute blood for coffee and inhale the satisfaction of a job well done in lieu of oxygen.

The first slide shows the Interpol logo, shimmering against the plain white of the background. The next one shows a grainy shot of a man, face mostly obscured. It's a profile shot, so what little of his face that can be seen is dark and blurred. His arm is bare, however, showing off a sleeve of tattoos. The next few slides are more pictures, most of the same man, the rest of recurring others who, like the main subject so far, are almost indistinguishable.

"Patron-Minette," says Eponine, and everyone grimaces at the name. The Amis have been trying to get hold of them since they started out, which was about three or so years ago. The gang is suspected of being behind various terrorist attacks and have been accused of terrorism, extortion and torture in court, but without solid evidence, they have not been charged of anything. Apparently, testimonies coerced from ex-criminals don't hold in court.

"There have been rumours of an attack on parliaments across Europe. Senior parliament members have received death threats, all stamped with Patron-Minette's insignia. The Russians have already had their first kill -" the slide flickers into another picture, this time of a particularly smarmy-looking middle-aged man "- Vladimir Agapov, 57, head of Kremlin security. He was found murdered in his loft by a cleaning worker, stabbed to death. He was branded, as well, though the sign was unknown. It is thought, however, that the murder isn't strictly Patron-Minette. It's not their style of killing." 

More pictures show the grisly scene, the man lying in a pool of blood in the middle of a posh-looking flat. Wooden objects reminiscent of drum sticks protrude from his chest, and his blood swirls across the wall behind him in a curly, looping script to form four words:

They have been avenged.

"Are those...?" asks Combeferre, trailing off as he stares at the picture.

"Paint brushes? Yes." Eponine's face is grim as Joly changes the slide, the new one displaying the murder weapons after they have been cleaned of blood. There are five of them, all in varying lengths and thickness. "He was stabbed to death by paint brushes. Forensic examination says that they're not just any brushes. These are custom-made by an English company that creates special paint brushes to suit the needs of each artist. Pro Arte has been contacted and they confirmed that they made those, though the order was in bulk and made anonymously. Each brush has been engraved."

Two pictures show off the engravings and the brand on the man, sitting side by side, and it's impossible not to stare. The brand is red and raw-looking, letters raising the flesh obscenely. They spell out EIGHTEEN, and both brand and engravings are in capital letters for it to not be a coincidence.

Enjolras stops propping up the wall behind him in favour of straightening up. His gaze never leaves the projection, even as he feels Combeferre's own burn a hole in the side of his head. "Looks like the renegade killer has made another appearance," he says, his voice a mixture of disgust and awe. It's hard not to admire the man, thinks Enjolras, because no matter how twisted his methods are, so far all his killings have been of morally corrupt characters the world wouldn't miss much.

Eponine smiles predatorily at him. "Oh yes. But this time, we've got visual on him. McBloodyFlurry over there was a little paranoid when he was alive, rest his smarmy soul. The man's got cameras hidden everywhere, and while EIGHTEEN and his accomplice managed to find most of them, they underestimated the paranoia of the truly unhinged. Agapov's microwave camera managed to get them."

Joly presses play and grainy footage starts rolling. The first few seconds are of the inside of a kitchen, visual half-obscured by what seems to be a towel. Then two figures come on screen, and Enjolras has to steel himself instead of collapsing into a chair, because he knows who that is, goddamnit.

There, as beautiful as the day she left, is his twin sister.

"Cosette Fauchelevant," says Eponine, and all eyes shoot to Enjolras in confusion, "and the elusive EIGHTEEN. Or, as he is better known to those who know him, Grantaire."

* * *

 He's sixteen and cold and miserable, standing at the door of his twin's room. He watches her pack, luxurious blonde hair flowing behind her as she whirls around the room in search of what she thinks she needs on this crazy trip to insaneville, population: her.

"You're wasting your potential," he tells her, and fuck, it's the wrong thing to say but everything's been wrong lately and it's not like it can get any worse than this.

She ignores him, zipping her bag shut furiously, the sound of the zipper teeth clashing incredibly loud in the tense silence.

"Father doesn't like this, but he also has no choice," he's talking, why is he talking? "At least show him the courtesy of staying until it is time to leave for university."

The stiff set of her shoulders tells him that nothing he says will change her mind but he can't not try. He hasn't felt the need to be close to his twin since he was nine and found a battered copy of The Social Contract, which he couldn't read for the most part yet tried anyway, but now he wants to grab her and hold her and keep her from ever leaving. From leaving him, really, because he can't follow her, not with his future on the line; if Enjolras is anything, it's pragmatic. He isn't flighty, not like her, she who feels everything so strongly, and has taken learning the truth about their mother to heart. She's locked it there, letting it fester for a week before it consumed her. And now she's leaving.

"Please, Cosette," he whispers when they're downstairs and she's walking out of the door, but she's too far away to hear him and it's too late. In that moment, he hates himself, hates being weak enough to let pride keep him from trying harder to stop his twin from walking away. 

And it is pride that makes him lose her, of that he is certain.

That's the start of his vaguely self-destructive mission to save the world; he couldn't save her from herself but he'll kill himself trying to save the rest of the world.

* * *

 

“Oh!” breathes Combeferre, staring at the video on loop with wide eyes. “He _is_ clever.”

Marius frowns from his place at the back of the room, looking up from his transcripts. “What do you mean?”

“EIGHTEEN. Don’t you see?” Combeferre asks, and no, they don’t see. Except for Enjolras, whose breath hitches in realisation. Their eyes meet across the room, identical predatory smiles spreading across their faces. “Think alphabet.”

Bahorel groans. “Mind actually explaining, Glasses?”

“There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet. The eighteenth letter is R, and Grantaire sounds like ‘grand R’ in French, if you think phonetically. That’s why we’ve never been able to get hold of EIGHTEEN – EIGHTEEN isn’t a name, or an organization…” he trails off. “It’s a pun.”

“A clever one, too,” adds Enjolras, and he can feel his admiration for the man grow begrudgingly. It really is smart – this isn’t just any killer, as proved by his methods and victims. It’s a game. The thought sparks something in him. “Do you think he’s left more clues in other murders?”

Joly’s fingers are already flying over the keys before he’s finished his sentence, his thoughts having followed a similar line to Enjolras’. “Eponine, what else have you found about Grantaire?”

Eponine produces another USB. “Not much, I’m afraid. He’s been pretty secretive throughout his life. Either that, or he’s been living under a rock, because there’s next to nothing on him beside a birth certificate.” All research has proved to be almost worthless. There’s absolutely no digital trail of the man; no Facebook account, no Twitter, no tumblr, nothing. The family name provided on the birth certificate is most probably fake, too, as she hasn’t been able to find contact information - or any information, for that matter – to be able to reach the family.

Joly looks up from his laptop. “Eponine, have you seen-“

“The paintings?” she cuts in, frowning. “Yeah. Disturbing and popular as they are, the gallery owners don’t actually know anything about the painter. They’re delivered each second Sunday of the month, and the money from a sale is deposited in an unsolicited account in Switzerland – one of those accounts that not even Interpol can get into.”

“What paintings?” asks Enjolras, stalking to the laptop Joly is pushing forward.

Combeferre leans in to inspect the screen, which shows a slideshow of paintings that are simultaneously haunting and beautiful. Most of them are accurate and detailed replicas of the murders committed by EIGHTEEN. Though not outright flagrant about their subjects, if the onlooker has been following EIGHTEEN as closely as the Amis have, it is impossible not to recognise the style of killings. The paint brushes used as a murder weapon feature in more than one paintings, and sometimes are the entire focus of the painting. Other paintings show a hand in a puddle of blood, an insignia ring around a paint brush sticking out from a chest, a few wildflowers watered with red spouting around a pair of muddied shoes. They are each a scene from a murder, faithfully replicated in gruesome detail, yet there’s also a touch of beauty that lends them the air of a train wreck – catastrophic and nightmare inducing, yet not something you could look away from.

“Did Grantaire paint all of these?”

“They’re all signed with an R, which we know means they’ve been done by Eighteen, or Grantaire, or whatever the fuck he calls himself,” Eponine answers.

“People actually buy these?” a horrified Marius asks, just as Bahorel says in disgust: “That’s fucking sick.”

Joly nods solemnly in reply to Marius’ question, moving on to the next painting before pausing. “Isn’t that…?”

It is. The painting is done in soft, muted colours that do nothing to dim the beauty of the subject. The girl in the painting is lying in a shallow pond with flowers interwoven into her blond hair. There is mud on her dress and blood on her knuckles, which are brought up to her mouth as though she’s kissing them better. Her eyes are closed, but Enjolras knows that under those palely purple eyebrows rest orbs of shocking sea green. In repose, Cosette looks all the more beautiful, and accompanied with her drowned state (he can only guess that she’s being painted as Ophelia – Hamlet always was her favourite play, after all.) she is positively ethereal.

“That one sold for four-point-six million,” says Eponine softly, watching Enjolras with careful eyes.

Swallowing hard, he straightens. His feet automatically carry him away from that table his friends are crowded around, away from that painting. He slots himself into a corner, shoulder blades digging into the walls harshly. “There’s been nothing from her for years. Hell, I thought she was dead. How the fuck is she involved with some renegade killer whose only redeeming quality is his apparent loathing for the morally corrupt?” 

He doesn’t realise that he’s clenching his fists until Combeferre takes hold of his wrists. “Breathe, Enjolras. We don’t know how involved Cosette is, yet. She might be doing this against her will, in which case we’ll have to help her.” 

He closes his eyes for a second. “And what if she isn’t?”

“Then we find this Grantaire character and figure out what the hell he’s hoping to accomplish by killing all those people.”

“That’s kind of the point of this,” interjects Eponine. A hardened, unreadable expression has replaced the guarded one. She stares at Enjolras as though waiting for him to challenge her next words. “We need you to find Grantaire.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and all comments are very welcome.
> 
> You can find me [here](http://enjolraspermitsit.tumblr.com) on tumblr.
> 
>  **19/August:** It has come to my attention that I forgot to mark this as "has multiple chapters" -facepalms- So sorry for the confusion, and to be on the safe side, this work isn't finished yet and WILL have multiple chapters. Oops. :)


End file.
